Starlog files your receipts into your own Google Drive — under your account, not ours. That's the whole point of the design: the image is the record, and it lives somewhere you control. But it does mean there's a one-time connection step, and one snag that catches enough people to be worth a guide. Here's what connecting Drive actually does, how to set it up, and how to fix it when sync looks stuck.
What connecting Drive actually does
When you connect Google Drive, Starlog creates a folder for your receipts and files captures into it — sorted per business, by year and month. Two things worth being precise about:
- Starlog only accesses the folder it creates. It doesn't read the rest of your Drive — not your documents, not your photos, not your other folders. The access is scoped to Starlog's own folder.
- The folder is yours. It sits in your Google account. If you ever stop using Starlog, the folder and every receipt in it stays with you — no export ransom, no vendor lock-in. (That's the argument in full, if you want it.)
How to connect it
It takes under a minute:
- Open in-app Settings.
- Find the Google Drive option and link your Google account.
- Approve the permission prompt. Google will name exactly what it's granting — access for Starlog to manage its own folder.
That's it. From then on, captures sync to your Drive automatically as you accept them onto your books.
The most common snag: "I signed in with Apple and Drive isn't working"
This is the one that trips people up, and it's not a bug — it's how the two sign-ins work.
Signing in with Apple does not grant Google Drive access. They're separate accounts: Apple Sign-In gets you into Starlog, but it can't hand over your Google Drive, because Apple and Google don't share that permission. So if you signed in with Apple, Drive will sit disconnected until you link Google specifically.
The fix: open Settings, and link your Google account there (step 2 above). You can keep signing into Starlog with Apple — you're just additionally granting Drive access to the Google account where you want your receipts to live.
Changing or disconnecting the Drive account
- To disconnect: open Settings and disconnect Drive at any time. Your existing receipts stay in the Drive folder — disconnecting stops future sync, it doesn't delete what's already there.
- To switch accounts: disconnect the current Google account, then link the one you actually want your receipts in. Worth getting right early, before you've filed a few hundred receipts into the wrong account.
A quick troubleshooting checklist
If receipts aren't showing up in Drive, walk these in order:
- Is Google linked at all? If you signed in with Apple, this is almost certainly it — link Google in Settings.
- Did the permission prompt get dismissed? If you tapped away before approving, re-run the link and approve the access.
- Is the capture actually accepted onto the books? Pending and rejected captures live in your Inbox and don't sync until you accept them — that's by design, so you decide what lands.
- Connectivity. Sync needs a connection; a capture made offline syncs once you're back online.
- Still stuck? Email us at the address on the support page with your device and what you're seeing — we read every report.
The takeaway
Connecting Drive is a one-time, scoped, minute-long step — and once it's done, every receipt you accept files itself into a folder that's permanently yours. If anything looks stuck, it's almost always the Apple-Sign-In-no-Google snag, and it's a thirty-second fix in Settings.